Food: Healthy meal pricing is a massive global scam

This salad of pasta, possibly canned tuna, boiled corn and baked pumpkin cost me 6$. In same shop Paratha curry or local chicken rice or prawn noodle curry was costing half the price. Ever wondered why? A salad of readily available fresh fruit, veggies, mostly baked or boiled, with little preparation time – how can that be costing more? Isn’t healthy food pricing one of the biggest scams around. You are paying double the amount every meal, everyday. It’s not a one time con!

Any day an aloo paratha or a rajma rice or a roti paneer curry needs more preparation time, effort, more raw materials and more cost price to vendor. But healthy foods which ideally should be priced lower is costing more with a false perception given that ‘oh healthy food and superstars and westerners eat that, so must be costly’﻿. Restaurants or sellers offcourse are doing good business over this sham. It’s the people responsible who readily pay more for supposed healthy food and ignore local food.

To me any local meal is as nutritious as canned tuna. As intelligent consumers we must put a stop to sellers who overprice healthy food and question their scam. If they wanted people to eat healthy they would have priced it correctly ie lower. Their intent offcourse is only profit.

What it does it falsely puts many western foods under healthier option. Ask your friend and they will tell a crepe or pastry is healthier than an random Indian sweet. Or a Donut healthier than Medu Vada. Or a Italian pasta meal at 10$ is healthier than a dosa meal at 4$. Seriously?

Health food has got people so obsessed – hoping to eat healthy and get a longer aging life – that at every nook corner we are splashing money on hope. Organic fruits, vegetables – same stuff roadside sellers in developing nations are plucking from farms to sell – are these days costing upto ten times the price of what it should. Put a random tiny sticker to an apple and consumer is willing to pay double the price, believing the apple is coming from a USA or a Australia and will prolong his life.

I can go on and on, on this. How the Olive oil marketing stunts removed coconut and mustard oil temporarily from markets. How processed food has multiplied its presence in our homes and stores over the past decade, running well under the facade ‘healthy people, superstars and westerners eat it’. How McD, Burger King and American junk food chains are rapidly opening all across the world despite people wanting to eat more healthy food and hence conveniently ignoring own local food. How our shopping experiences are no more about what we want to eat but more on the different promises and marketing labels on it.

My only plea to you’ll is do not overpay to any ‘healthy dish’ which is overpriced and scamming you. Secondly have a second look at the dishes you have been eating since childhood. They aren’t so unhealthy as you have been made to believe.

In 1970s-90s India, every restaurant or eatery would be serving a plate of salad -diced onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, lemon – FREE